


Many Lifetimes

by captainamergirl



Category: General Hospital (TV 1963)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-17
Updated: 2021-03-17
Packaged: 2021-03-25 22:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30096273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainamergirl/pseuds/captainamergirl
Summary: Sam just wants revenge.{AU McBam}
Relationships: John McBain/Samantha "Sam" McCall





	Many Lifetimes

Even on an island full of exotic beauties, he seemed to see only her. The first time he noticed her she was sitting at a tiki bar nursing a drink much too hard to have been chosen frivolously. No, that kind of drink was one you consumed when life had bitchslapped you one too many times. She looked miserable, seemingly caught in the grips of both indecisive inertia and manic heartbreak. He was drawn to her for whatever reason and soon he had begun to approach her. But seeing him coming, her eyes flashed a warning and then she was throwing a twenty down on the bar and hustling out of there. He didn’t expect to see her again but somehow he hoped he would.  
  
Two nights later, he was in still another bar chasing leads on this never-ending case when he felt – yes, felt – her enter. Her presence was startlingly big for such a tiny woman. He nonchalantly turned to look at her and she noticed him in return. But this time she didn’t turn tail and run. No, she approached him, spitting out venomously, “Are you stalking me?”  
  
“Hardly. It’s a small island.”  
  
“What are you even doing here?” She snapped. “You don’t look like a tourist.” She flicked the sleeve of his pressed suit jacket pointedly.  
  
“What -- you don’t like the color?” He sniffed. “I told the salesman that gray was not my color …”  
  
“Why are you being such a smartass?” She demanded. Before he could toss off a reply, she held up a hand. “Nevermind. Just … Stop following me.”  
  
She then spun on her booted high heel and started for the door. He called after her, “Nice seeing you again.”  
  
XoXoXo  
  
The third time he saw her, he was relaxing with a cold one after a long day when she approached him straight away, grabbed him by either side of the face, and out of the blue planted a sloppy kiss on his cheek. He noticed by the glint in her deep brown eyes that she was drunk off her ass. She had likely been trolling every bar on the island until she reached this one.  
  
“Missed me?” He murmured as he pulled out the bar stool beside him.  
  
“I don’t want to sit,” she said and grasped the sleeve of his jacket. “Dance with me.”  
  
“I don’t dance.”  
  
“Come on!”  
  
“No seriously, I have two left feet and –“  
  
She waved a hand. “Fine, whatever. There are a like ten million men on this island –“  
  
He smirked. “I sincerely doubt that.”  
  
“Whatever!” she snapped. “All I know is, I’ll find one or two or three to entertain me, G-man.”  
  
He stiffened a bit. So she knew he was working with the FBI, huh? Was she just that smart or had she been watching him too? He didn’t mind the idea of the latter in the least …  
  
He watched her as she strode purposefully away and immediately into the company of two big island men who began to grind up against her. He hated the sight of it. They were groping her and she was only half-pretending to enjoy it. When he saw one guy’s hand snake up her thigh, he was done being a voyeur. He set down his beer and marched over to the men. Harsh words were exchanged, John ducked two punches, and delivered two of his own before picking her up, slinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and carrying her out of there kicking and screaming.  
  
She continued to ram the toe of her boot into his chest again and again and he pretended he wouldn’t mind that she was leaving bruises on his sternum. People gave them a wide berth as he carried her down the street. She was cursing a blue streak and even used some words he was shocked by.  
  
They finally reached his rental car and he tried stuffing her inside it but she kicked him hard in the shin and began to take off running. He regrouped and charged after her. He didn’t trust her to go off alone in her inebriated state. He didn’t want her to go, period.  
  
He finally caught her and wrapped his arms around her in a tight embrace. He locked his hands onto her arms and held tightly but not tightly enough to hurt her. “Okay, calm down.”  
  
“Why the fuck should I?” she demanded. “You’re manhandling me.”  
  
“I’m trying to keep you from doing something stupid.”  
  
“Why? Do you honestly think I’m going to fuck you speechless? I am definitely not going to do that.”  
  
“The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind,” he lied through his teeth. “However, I can tell when someone is looking for trouble and you are. You’re going to get hurt.”  
  
“Is that a threat?”  
  
“Hardly. It’s a fact. You’re playing with fire being drunk in a bar full of men who won’t think twice about taking advantage of you like this.”  
  
“And you wouldn’t?”  
  
“I’m not going to hurt you. I promise you that.” He loosened his grip just enough on her that she could turn around and look at him with her impossibly gorgeous brown eyes.  
  
“That’s what they all say,” she murmured.  
  
There was a story there but he didn’t press her for any details. “Come on, let me take you home. Play time is over.”  
  
She shook her head and surprisingly acquiesced.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
He hadn’t intended on staying the night but she had invited him into her hotel room and he couldn’t find it in himself to say “no”. They did nothing but talk for a moment (and he had no intention of doing anything more) when she passed out on the bed. He covered her with a blanket and tucked her booted feet under the covers and sat and watched her for a bit until he fell asleep himself. He was only roused in wee hours of the morning by her tentatively nudging him with the toe of her boots.  
  
“What happened last night?” she asked when he popped open his eyes and stared at her.  
  
“Nothing,” he said. “At least not what you’re thinking.”  
  
“Why are you sleeping in a chair in my room?”  
  
“You don’t remember?”  
  
“It’s all very vague.”  
  
“You drank until you blacked out. That’s not the brightest thing to do, might I add.”  
  
“Maybe not but I need to forget …” She trailed off and he cocked his head to the side.  
  
“Forget what?”  
  
She sighed and bunched up the pillow behind her head. “Why do I feel like I can just talk to you about anything? I swear from the moment you walked into that bar a few nights ago … I felt like I knew you but I definitely don’t want to know you.”  
  
“I’m not that horrible am I?”  
  
“I mean, no offense, but I don’t need the complication. I came here for a reason and it was not to make friends.”  
  
“Why did you come here?”  
  
“You’re FBI. I don’t talk to FBI.”  
  
“I am consulting on a case but am no longer technically ‘FBI.”  
  
“You’re still a cop,” she said.  
  
“Okay yeah I admit that but whatever you have to say, I swear it won’t leave this room.”  
  
“I believe you. I don’t know why I do … But –“ her voice trailed off for a moment. “I came here to get justice.”  
  
“What kind of justice are we talking about?”  
  
“The whole eye-for-an-eye thing.”  
  
“Someone wronged you…” That much was obvious.  
  
“Yeah,” she sniffed. “You could say that. And I’m going to pay him back in a big way just as soon as I find him. He’s been known to follow me but now I am going to turn it all around on his psycho ass.”  
  
John nodded. “What did he do to you?”  
  
Her eyes filled with tears and she looked away for a moment as she feigned adjusting her pillows behind her. “Does it matter?”  
  
“It matters to you so it matters to me.”  
  
She sniffled and turned back to look at him, her eyes sheened with crystalline tears. “Why do I believe that you actually care?”  
  
“Because I do,” he said. “I could tell from the first night I saw you that you were someone worth getting to know.”  
  
She nodded. “I swear I knew you in another life …”  
  
“Maybe so.”  
  
She sniffled again and seemed to be willing back sobs. “This guy … He hurt me badly, he violated me on my own honeymoon … But that’s – that’s not the worst part. The worst part is that he killed any chance I ever had of having a normal life. He snatched it away. After that, my husband and I couldn’t go back to the status quo. Even when I found out I was pregnant …” She cringed as her hand went to her impossibly flat stomach. “He was there, torturing me every step of the way, even when he wasn’t actually there in person. Things started falling apart very fast even when a paternity test said the baby was my husband’s. And one night, things just ended …”  
  
“Your baby …”  
  
She nodded as a single tear slid down her cheek. “Died, yes. I miscarried at six months. I don’t even have a fucking gravestone to cry on… My marriage ended too… You see, I have nothing left to live for but revenge.”  
  
“Don’t say that. You lost more than anyone has a right too but you are still here and kicking for a reason.”  
  
“Because God has a fucking shitty sense of humor?”  
  
“No because you still have so much to accomplish. I can see that clearly.”  
  
“You don’t really believe that Fortune Cookie shit you’re spewing, do you?” She asked as another tear slid down her face.  
  
“It’s true. What you suffered … It would have killed any other woman but not you. That makes you pretty damn strong in my eyes.”  
  
“I have to find him. I have to find Franco and make him pay!” she cried and right away alarm signals started flying off like fireworks in his head. Franco … The same Franco he was looking for?  
  
However, all of that was temporarily forgotten as he was suddenly joining her on the bed, pulling her into his arms, and hugging her tightly as sobs wracked her small body.  
  
XoXoXo  
  
She fell asleep in his arms and when she woke up, she looked up at him with questioning eyes, noting he had his arms looped tightly around her waist. “You’re still here.”  
  
“I’m not going anywhere, Sam.”  
  
“My name … You know my name?”  
  
He nodded. “I do now. I made some calls while you were sleeping. It turns out you and I are looking for the same person.”  
  
“Franco?”  
  
“Yeah. He’s the reason I came to the island, following a bunch of leads. I’m gunna make him pay, Sam, so you don’t have to.”  
  
“I want to though. I want to be the one to pull the trigger and end his sick, pathetic life forever.”  
  
“We’ll do this the right way. We will get you justice.”  
  
“Justice is Franco dead and me killing him!” she cried.  
  
“He will die, Sam, by lethal injection.”  
  
“That’s not good enough. He needs to suffer! I thought you wanted to help me.”  
  
“I do.”  
  
“Then let me do this.”  
  
“I can’t. You will go to prison for life. I don’t want you rotting away for a lifetime.”  
  
“I don’t care.”  
  
He reached out and thumbed her cheek lightly. “You have so much left to live for. I know you don’t believe that right now but it’s true. Don’t throw it all away for that sick monster. I will make him pay through the nose for what he did to you and your baby but you need to leave your hands clean.”  
  
“I am afraid …”  
  
“You’re human. That’s allowed.”  
  
“You know all the right things to say.”  
  
“Believe me, it’s rare.”  
  
She nodded and instinctively rested her head on his chest as more tears came. “You never did tell me my savior’s name…”  
  
“I am no one’s savior,” he said. “But I am your friend.”  
  
She looked up at him. “I believe that…”  
  
He smiled at her. “My name is John.”  
  
“You already know mine.”  
  
“Yeah, but I don’t know everything about you yet and I want to.”  
  
“You will. Something tells me we are going to be a part of each other’s lives for a long, long time to come…”  
  
FINIS


End file.
